Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week's Events:

Positives,

1)After jumping last week to 233k (revised up by 2k), initial jobless claims fell back to 209k for the week ended 11/18 and that was well below the estimate of 227k. Smoothing out the weekly noise has the 4 week average at 220k vs 221k in the week before which is around a 2 month high. Continuing claims remained near the highest level since December 2021 but did fall to 1.84mm from 1.862mm in the prior week and vs 1.833mm in the week before that.

2)Mortgage applications got a lift due to the drop in mortgage rates. Purchases rose for a 3rd week, up 3.9% w/o/w as people get off the fence with the 50 bps drop in the average 30 yr rate over the past month. Refi's, which is mostly cash outs, were up 1.6% w/o/w. 

3)From Burlington: "During the quarter, we were very pleased with our back to school trend. Our quarter to date comp growth through September was slightly ahead of our guidance range, but then unseasonably warm weather in October slowed this trend. Of course, we have a very strong heritage in outerwear, so warmer temperatures in October tend to have a more negative impact on us compared to other retailers. Overall, given this unfavorability in weather as well as the general softness across discretionary retail, we were pleased with our third quarter performance...November is off to a solid start, and this gives us confidence in our previously discussed Q4 guidance."

4)From Dick's Sporting Goods: "We had a very strong back to school season driven by our best in class athlete experience and differentiated assortment." Their 1.7% increase in comps were "driven by increases in both transactions and average ticket...And during the quarter we saw more athletes purchase from us while spending more each trip."

5)From Analog Devices: "Encouragingly, during the fourth quarter we've seen cancellations fall and bookings stabilize. This gives us greater confidence that the ongoing inventory correction will taper through the first half of the fiscal year."